The Relevance of Gender for Eliminating Weapons of Mass Destruction

When trying to think about how to solve the problems created by
the existence of weapons of mass destruction, ideas about gender
matter. Although the linkage between weapons of mass destruction
and gender will be unfamiliar for many readers, this paper[1] argues that ideas and expectations about
gender are woven through the professional and political discourses
that shape all aspects of how weapons of mass destruction are
considered, desired and addressed. To address WMD challenges more
effectively, it is essential to take into consideration how
armament and disarmament policies and practices are influenced by
ideas about masculinity. An understanding of how these limitations
occur can play a crucial role in helping break some of the
persistent barriers to achieving disarmament and
non-proliferation.

It is important to stress that this paper will focus on ideas
about gender, rather than on men or women per se. A different paper
will need to be written that would look at men's and women's
relations to WMD. That paper would explore the implications of the
fact that women have been largely absent from the scientific and
political decisionmaking about WMD,[2] in spite of the long and consistent history of
women's organisations advocating for the total disarmament of
biological, chemical and particularly nuclear weapons.[3] It might also look at some of the different
ways that men's and women's bodies are affected by the development
and testing of these weapons.[4] The
present article, however, does not focus on women's or men's
bodies, nor their political perspectives or activism; instead it
will focus on how ideas about gender - what is masculine or
feminine, powerful or impotent - affect our efforts towards halting
the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and bringing about
effective disarmament.

Defining Gender

Before proceeding with the argument, we need to look at the oft
misused and misunderstood term "gender" and clarify its multiple
meanings and our use of it. "Gender" has increasingly been employed
to make a distinction between biology and culture - that is, the
biological differences between male and female bodies on the one
hand, and the meaning given to those differences on the
other. People in every culture have biologically male or female
bodies, but what it means to be "masculine" or "feminine" is
different for different cultures and changes over time. What kinds
of capabilities or personality traits we expect women or men to
have, the kinds of activities, jobs, and family roles we think it
appropriate for them to take on, what it means to be a "real man"
or a "good woman" - all of these are part of the cultural meaning
given to biological difference.

Gender is not only about individual identity or what a society
teaches us a man or women, boy or girl should be like. Gender is
also a way of structuring relations of power - whether that is
within families, where the man is often considered the head of the
household, or in societies writ large, where men tend to be the
ones in whose hands political, economic, religious and other forms
of cultural power are concentrated.

These two phenomena - individual identity and structures of
power - are significantly related to each other. Hence it is the
meanings and characteristics culturally associated with masculinity
that make it appear "natural" and just for men to have the power to
govern their families and their societies. That is, if as a society
we come to believe that people with biologically male bodies are
the ones most likely to be strong, rational, prudent, responsible,
objective, and willing to fight if necessary (a.k.a.
"masculine"), we will think it right that they are the ones to
rule. Conversely, if as a society we come to believe that people
with female bodies are weak, emotional, irrational, passive,
nurturing, and in need of protection (a.k.a. "feminine"), we
will think it natural and right that most women's lives should be
limited to the private sphere of home and family.

A next crucial step in thinking about gender is to realise that
its effects go beyond the meanings ascribed to male and female
bodies, and the concomitant ways that power is (unequally)
distributed amongst men and women. Gender also functions as a
symbolic system: our ideas about gender permeate and shape our
ideas about many other aspects of society beyond male-female
relations - including politics, weapons, and warfare.

The easiest way to see this is to look at some of the adjectives
associated with masculinity (e.g., strong, rational, prudent,
active, objective) and femininity (e.g., weak, irrational,
impulsive, passive, subjective). What is immediately apparent
is:

first, they constitute dichotomous pairs of characteristics
which are seen as mutually exclusive (e.g., strong/weak,
active/passive, etc.);

second, in each case, the "masculine" side of the pair is
valued more highly than the "feminine" one.

third, the very meaning of masculinity and femininity is
defined through its relation to its "opposite". That is, they are
dependent upon each other for their meaning: masculinities do not
exist except in contrast to femininities and vice versa. This means
that a man could not be seen as insufficiently masculine or "wimpy"
unless we have an idea of the "feminine" characteristics "real" men
must avoid.

Critically, this creation of gender-dichotomised pairings
extends far beyond a list of human characteristics: think, for
example, of culture/nature; analysis/intuition; order/disorder;
assert/compromise; military/civilian. Here, too, although these
pairs have no necessary relation to male or female bodies, in US
(the dominant Western) culture, one side of each pair is culturally
coded "masculine", the other "feminine", and the "masculine is the
more highly valued. The effect of this symbolic gender-coding is
that any human action or endeavour, no matter how unrelated to
biological maleness or femaleness, is perceived as more or less
masculine or feminine - even if only at a subconscious level - and
valued or devalued accordingly. In other words, ideas about gender
not only shape how we perceive men and women; they shape how we see
the world. And they have political effects.

Gender, National Security and Weapons

Weapons of mass destruction are not only physical objects, they
are political objects; their symbolic importance is key in national
and international security debates, as well as in domestic
politics. And one aspect of political discourse - so obvious as to
be usually taken for granted - is that gendered terms and symbols
are an integral part of how political issues are thought about and
represented, and an integral part of the image-production
associated with political leaders. There is often, for instance, an
anxious preoccupation with affirming manhood on the part of
candidates for political office, for whom it is dangerous to be
seen as "soft" or "wimpish": recent US politics provides the
example of the fevered Republican efforts to undermine presidential
candidate John Kerry's image as a leader by undermining his
portrayal as a courageous warrior in Vietnam; or the pre-election
spectacle of President George W. Bush striding across the deck of
an aircraft carrier in his flight suit, proclaiming victory in Iraq
in front of a "mission accomplished" banner.[5]

There are also many instances in which political masculinity is
linked with preparedness to use military action and to wield
weapons. During the first Bush administration 1988-1992, for
example, the US media speculated whether George H. W. Bush had
finally "beat the wimp factor" by going to war against Iraq. In
these and other cases, we see the link between war and a heroic
kind of masculinity, which depends on a feminised and devalued
notion of peace as unattainable, unrealistic, passive and (it might
be said) undesirable.

But it is not only the political context within which weapons of
mass destruction are situated that is deeply gendered. So are the
practical and symbolic dimensions of weapons themselves. This is
perhaps most obvious in relation to small arms. Governments and
international institutions are increasingly accepting that small
arms and light weapons (SALW) are practically associated with
masculinity in many cultures, with men as the vast majority of the
buyers, owners or users. After early policy failures, it is also
becoming increasingly recognised that the symbolic associations of
SALW with masculinity have political effects. Specifically, in
relation to disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR)
programmes, real barriers to effective SALW disarmament are created
by the ways in which masculine identities and roles have become
conjoined with weapons possession for many (male) combatants.

There is now general recognition that there are significant
gender dimensions to the possession of small arms and light
weapons. It would be naive to assume that this association suddenly
becomes meaningless when we are taking about larger, more massively
destructive weapons. And more naïve still to think that it
doesn't matter. Given the dubious military value and problematic
usability of most WMD, a focus on their symbolic dimensions has to
be central to any effort at weapons reduction or disarmament.
Without gender analysis, attempts to untangle and understand the
symbolic value and meaning of WMD are incomplete and
inadequate.

Some brief examples illustrate this important dimension. When
India exploded five nuclear devices in May 1998, Hindu nationalist
leader Balasaheb Thackeray explained "we had to prove that we are
not eunuchs". An Indian newspaper cartoon depicted Prime Minister
Atal Behari Vajpayee propping up his coalition government with a
nuclear bomb. "Made with Viagra" the caption read. Images such as
these rely on the widespread metaphoric equation of political and
military power with sexual potency and masculinity. Political
actors incorporate sexual metaphors in their representations of
nuclear weapons as a way to mobilise gendered associations and
symbols in creating assent, excitement, support for, and
identification with the weapons and their own political regime; in
other words, the symbolic gendered dimensions of nuclear weapons
are not trivial; they are an integral part of accomplishing
domestic and political objectives.

That a nation wishing to stake a claim to being a regional or
world power should choose nuclear weapons as its medium for doing
so is too frequently characterised as "natural": advanced military
destructive capacity identifies a state as powerful. The "fact"
that nuclear weapons are being instituted as the currency for
establishing a hierarchy of state power is unremarked, unanalysed,
and taken for granted by most analysts. By contrast, feminist
theory, using a historical and post-colonial lens, is better able
to understand nuclear weapons' enshrinement as the emblem of power
not as a natural fact, but as a social one, produced by the actions
of states. Thus, when the United States, with the most powerful
economy and conventional military in the world, acts as though its
power and security are guaranteed only by a large nuclear arsenal,
it creates a context in which nuclear weapons become the ultimate
necessity for, and symbol of, state security. And when the United
States (or any other nuclear power) works hard to ensure that other
countries don't obtain nuclear weapons, it is creating a context in
which it is perceived as keeping other nations down, to subordinate
and emasculate them - to render them eunuchs! Hence, regardless of
their military utility nuclear weapons are turned into the ultimate
arbiter of political/masculine power. Balasaheb Thackeray did not
invent the meaning of India's nuclear tests out of thin air.

Why do ideas about gender matter for dealing with WMD?

The ways in which ideas about gender are embedded in ideas about
WMD matter for two central reasons. Firstly, ideas about gender
serve to shape, limit and distort the very discourses - both
professional and political - that have been developed to think
about WMD, and so have political consequences that have a crucial
bearing on our efforts to try to achieve disarmament and
non-proliferation. Secondly, ideas about gender also shape, limit
and distort the national and international political processes
through which decisions about WMD are made. Ideas about strength,
protection, rationality, security and control have a critical
impact on governmental and intergovernmental policy, as well as
functioning at a large-scale societal level, where a certain notion
of aggressive masculinity is equated with human nature, as in the
phrase "disarmament would be nice but it's against human nature".
We must be aware of, and find ways to address, these gendered
assumptions if we are to transform the intellectual and political
processes that have so long impeded effective WMD disarmament.

Ideas about gender shape, limit and distort professional
and political discourses about WMD

We start with a true story, told to Dr. Cohn by a member of a
group of nuclear strategists, a white male physicist:

"Several colleagues and I were working on modelling counterforce
nuclear attacks, trying to get realistic estimates of the number of
immediate fatalities that would result from different deployments.
At one point, we re-modelled a particular attack, using slightly
different assumptions, and found that instead of there being 36
million immediate fatalities, there would only be 30 million. And
everybody was sitting around nodding, saying, 'Oh yeh, that's
great, only 30 million,' when all of a sudden, I heard what
we were saying. And I blurted out, 'Wait, I've just heard how we're
talking - Only 30 million! Only 30 million human
beings killed instantly?' Silence fell upon the room. Nobody said a
word. They didn't even look at me. It was awful. I felt like a
woman." The physicist added that henceforth he was careful never to
blurt out anything like that again.

Why did he feel that way? First, he was transgressing a code of
professional conduct. Expressing concern about human bodies is not
the way you talk within the terms of the strategic expert
discourse, which is, after all, a discourse about weapons and their
relation to each other, not to human bodies. But even worse than
that, he evinced some of the characteristics on the "female" side
of the dichotomies - in his "blurting" he was being impulsive,
uncontrolled, emotional, concrete, upset and attentive to fragile
human bodies. Thus, the hegemonic discourse of gender positioned
him as feminine, which he found doubly threatening. It was not only
a threat to his own sense of self as masculine, his gender
identity; it also positioned him in the devalued or subordinate
position in the discourse. Thus, both his statement, "I felt like a
woman," and his subsequent silence in that and other settings, are
completely understandable. To find the strength of character and
courage to transgress the strictures of both professional and
gender codes and to associate yourself with a lower status is very
difficult.

This story is not simply about one individual, his feelings and
actions; it illustrates the role and meaning of gender discourse in
the defence community. The impact of gender discourse in that room
(and countless others like it) is that some things are excluded and
get left out from professional deliberations. Certain ideas,
concerns, interests, information, feelings and meanings are marked
in national security discourse as feminine, and devalued. They are
therefore very difficult to speak, as exemplified by the physicist
who blurted them out and wished he hadn't. And if they manage to be
said, they are also very difficult to hear, to take in and work
with seriously. For the others in the room, the way in which the
physicist's comments were marked as feminine and devalued served to
delegitimate them; it also made it very unlikely that any of his
colleagues would find the courage to agree with him.

This example should not be dismissed as just the product of the
idiosyncratic personal composition of that particular room; it is
replicated many times and in many places. Women, in professional
and military settings, have related experiences of realising that
something terribly important is being left out but feeling
constrained, as if there is almost a physical barrier preventing
them from pushing their transgressive truths out into the open.

What is it that cannot be spoken? First, any expression of an
emotional awareness of the desperate human reality behind the
sanitised abstractions of death and destruction in strategic
deliberations. Similarly, weapons' effects may only be spoken of in
the most clinical and abstract terms, and usually only by those
deemed to have the appropriate professional qualifications and
expertise.

What gets left out, then, is the emotional, the concrete, the
particular, human bodies and their vulnerability, human lives and
their subjectivity - all of which are marked as feminine in the
binary dichotomies of gender discourse. In other words, gender
discourse informs and shapes nuclear and national security
discourse, and in so doing creates silences and absences. It keeps
things out of the room, unsaid, and keeps them ignored if they
manage to get in. As such, it degrades our ability to think well
and fully about nuclear weapons and national security, and so
shapes and limits the possible outcomes of our deliberations.

With this understanding, it becomes obvious that defence
intellectuals' standards of what constitutes "good thinking" about
weapons and security have not simply evolved out of trial and
error; it is not that the history of nuclear discourse has been
filled with exploration of other ideas, concerns, interests,
information, questions, feelings, meanings and stances which were
then found to create distorted or poor thought. On the contrary,
serious consideration of a whole range of ideas and options has
been preempted by their gender coding, and by the feelings evoked
by living up to or transgressing normative gender ideals. To borrow
a strategists' term, we can say that gender coding serves as a
"preemptive deterrent" to certain kinds of thought about the
effects and consequences of strategic plans and WMD.[6]

Ideas about gender shape, limit and distort the national
and international political processes through which decisions about
WMD are made

The impact of ideas about gender extends beyond the realm of the
professional discourse of weapons experts; ideas about gender also
affect the national and international processes through which
decisions are made about the acquisition of weapons, the
maintenance of weapons stockpiles, and disarmament initiatives. To
see this, we need to treat seriously a phenomenon that is so taken
for granted that it is usually unremarked - that both war and
weapons are currently associated with masculinity. What does it
mean to take this seriously? What effects does this have?

One telling example comes from 1990, after Saddam Hussein had
invaded Kuwait, during the build-up to the first Gulf War. During a
speculative discussion among a group of defence intellectuals and
opinion-formers, one declared, "Look, the question is, "Does George
[H.W.] Bush have the stones for war?" That is, does he have the
masculine strength and courage, is he man enough, to lead his
country into war?[7]

Look at what happens when the question is framed this way. Even
though the man who asked this question might not endorse the
statement "war is a good thing", he equated a willingness to go to
war with having "stones" - a euphemism for balls, generally
regarded as a positive attribute (for a man). Hence "going to war"
is given the positive valence that masculinity - being a "real man"
- is understood to possess. Even more importantly, this equation
carries a deeper implication: not only does it give to waging war
some of the positive value attached to masculinity; it also makes
it much more difficult not to go to war.

By extension, the research, development, production, stockpiling
and deployment of weapons and delivery systems - without which
going to war is impossible - are also equated with manliness, using
gender-resonant language about the importance of "demonstrating our
strength and resolve". As a consequence, it is easier to
delegitimise proponents of cutting military spending. Whether their
motivations are disarmament or getting rid of expensive weapons
programmes that make no military or strategic sense, opponents of
military spending are undermined by accusations of being "weak on
defence". They are portrayed as feeble, wimpy or lacking "balls" -
the kiss of death in American politics.

Another example, from US public discourse after 9/11, is some
variation on the theme, "We should bomb 'em back to the Stone Age,
and then make the rubble bounce."[8]
Frequently expressed on talk radio shows or internet discussions,
this kind of rhetoric hardly represents a rational strategic
calculation; rather, it is about the sheer pleasure and thrill of
having so much destructive power. While astounding in its amorality
and ignorance, such utterances are meant to elicit admiration for
the wrathful manliness of the speaker. The effects of this kind of
speech are pernicious. The implication is that to avoid responding
to a political crisis by going to war shows a lack of balls. Not to
be ready, willing and able to demolish your opponents by "bombing
'em back to the Stone Age" is to be weak. In such a charged and
masculinised context, it becomes extraordinarily difficult to
develop and advocate other forms of security policy.

By correlation, although the practice of diplomacy is also
ritualised and masculinised in many ways, US culture has never
accorded diplomacy the strong, muscular attributes that are heaped
on soldiering. US movies are not filled with brawny movie stars
playing heroes in the diplomatic corps. Manly action heroes seldom
carry briefcases (unless they are undercover James Bonds). Nor do
they, in the cultural meanings of masculinity dominant in the
United States, make treaties and "depend" on the other parties to
honour their obligations under those treaties. This point was
acutely represented in a recent political cartoon in a US newspaper
that featured the earth as a jigsaw puzzle with one piece missing
from the centre. President George W. Bush was depicted walking away
with that piece under his harm saying, "treaties are for
wimps".

In other words, consulting, negotiating, acknowledging
interdependence and - worst of all - depending on others, are
activities that are culturally marked down as weak and lacking in
masculinity. In the US cultural and symbolic system, trying to get
what you want by talking and persuading, depending, trusting and
compromising is feminine; having the power to enforce your will is
much more masculine.

The use of inspections rather than military attack, as the means
to ensure that a state does not build and deploy weapons of mass
destruction, would be another example of a culturally feminised
approach to achieve the political objective of non-proliferation.
Living in the United States during the build up to the US invasion
of Iraq in 2003, the symbolic gendered overtones of the difference
between responding to a "bully" with inspections or military action
was enormously significant, especially for mobilising political
support. Despite the actual, and now proven, effectiveness of the
United Nations' UNSCOM, UNMOVIC and International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA) monitoring and disarmament regimes in Iraq during the
1990s, the route of inspections was belittled as ineffectual,
wimpy, and insufficiently active and aggressive; critically, it was
portrayed as simply not a powerful enough way to respond to the
perceived threat of a "rogue actor". On the contrary, a massive
military campaign in which the United States would "smoke 'em out
of their holes and their WMD with them" was presented as a far more
powerful and satisfying way to deal with the problem.[9] A decade of inspections was portrayed as
having been impotent - the worst form of demasculinisation. In
contrast, it was taken for granted, at least by agenda setting
leaders and most of the US media, that the only real way to deal
was to have the enemy at the other end of the barrel of a gun. The
way in which gender associations were intertwined with these two
different approaches facilitated the selling of war as the right
policy - and made it difficult to argue for further
inspections.

The fact that the inspections regime worked was lost in this
masculinised landscape. That this important recognition is still
largely invisible to Americans, if not to the rest of the world, is
even greater testament to the power of ideas about gender and the
way gendered meanings are attached to all kinds of activities and
discourses. In short, the gender-coding of "passive, wimpy"
inspections creates a political "reality" in which it doesn't
matter that the inspections worked. Despite their success,
inspections are identified as weak and ineffectual, an
inappropriate tool for the most muscular nation on earth.

That invasion should "self-evidently" seem to be a more potent,
effective course of action than inspection is connected to another
gendered phenomenon: the efficacy of violence is consistently
over-estimated, while its costs are undercounted.[10] The corollary of this is that the efficacy of
nonviolent means is consistently underestimated, and its costs
exaggerated. This sleight of hand cannot be understood without
comprehending the impact of ideas about gender. The context in
which the IAEA and its inspections partners in Iraq, UNSCOM and
UNMOVIC, had to work was one in which multilateralism and treaties
were seen as weak, temporary alternatives to national (militarised)
action. This constructed perception of treaties as feeble and
effeminate routes to security is an enormous obstacle that
advocates of disarmament and human security have to struggle
through, no matter how credible or rational their case may be.

"Proliferation" is not a mere description or mirror of a
phenomenon that is "out there" but rather a very specific way of
identifying and constructing a problem concerning weapons.
Proliferation, as used in Western political discourse, does not
simply refer to the "multiplication" of weapons of mass destruction
on the planet. Rather, it constructs some WMD as a problem, and
turns a blind eye to others. With nuclear weapons, for example, it
is able to do this by assuming pre-existing, legitimate possessors,
implicitly not only entitled to those weapons, but to modernise and
develop new generations of them as well. The "problematic" nuclear
weapons are only those that "spread" into the arsenals of other,
formerly non-possessor states. This is the basis for the
"licit/illicit" distinction commonly found in arms control
discourse, which does not refer to the nature of the weapons
themselves, nor even to the purposes for which they are intended,
but on who possesses them. The nuclear non-proliferation regime
enshrined "we got there first" as a basis for arms control.

Most people in the world view WMD as intrinsically morally
indefensible, no matter who possesses them. In addition to the
abhorrence attached to their use, the wide array of social,
economic, political and health costs associated with their
development and deployment are repugnant. Rejecting proliferation
discourse's implicit division of "good" and "bad," "safe" and
"unsafe" WMD, (defined as such depending on who possesses them), it
is imperative now to understand how some WMD are rendered invisible
or benign (ours) and others visible and malignant (theirs).

In drawing a distinction between "the Self" and the (generally
non-Western) "Unruly Other", the prevailing arguments against
proliferation appear patronising, ethno-racist and contemptuous.
Not only does non-proliferation discourse draw on Occidentalist
portrayals of third world actors; it does so through the medium of
gender-laden terminology. For example, the nuclear possessors' Self
is responsible, prudent, rational, advanced, mature, restrained,
technologically and bureaucratically competent (and thus
"hegemonically masculine"). By contrast, the Unruly Others are
irrational, unpredictable, emotional, uncontrolled, immature,
primitive, undisciplined, incompetent, technologically backward
(marks of an inferior or "subordinated" masculinity). Hence the
terms of the debate are constructed to normalise and legitimate the
Self/possessor states keeping weapons that the Others must be
prevented from acquiring. By drawing on and evoking gendered
imagery and resonances, the discourse naturalises the idea that
"We" (the responsible father or sheriff) must protect, control and
limit the "uncivilised", out-of control "rogue" states - for their
own good, as well as for ours.

This Western proliferation discourse has had a function in the
wider context of US national security politics. With the end of the
"Evil Empire" of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s, until the
attacks of September 11, 2001, the United States appeared to be
without an enemy sufficiently threatening to justify maintaining
its sprawling military-industrial establishment. This difficulty
for the military-industrial complex was forestalled by the
construction of the category of "rogue states", with governments
portrayed as uncontrollable, irresponsible, irrational, malevolent,
and antagonistic to Western values. Their unruliness and hostility
is represented as intrinsic to their irrational nature, for to view
the antagonism as politically rooted would have necessitated some
soul-searching analysis into the role of Western policies and
actions in contributing to disorder and breakdown in other states
and regions.

The discourse of WMD proliferation has been one of the principal
means of portraying certain states as major threats. To say this is
neither to back away from our position opposing all weapons of mass
destruction, nor to argue about the degree to which WMD in the
hands of "Other" states actually do threaten the United States,
local populations, regional neighbours or international security.
The point is that the underlying gendered symbolism in the WMD
proliferation discourse helps make it feel natural and legitimate
to fight wars and spend money on military programmes such as
ballistic missile defence, which would otherwise be difficult to
justify on rational security grounds.

Resolution 1325: enhancing the role of women in peace and
security

What do you get from being aware of the gendered meanings that
are woven through WMD discourse and politics? First, ignoring it
doesn't make it go away. Instead, by recognising that there is a
problem, it becomes possible to confront the traditionally
constructed meanings and redefine terms such as "strength" and
"security" so that they more appropriately reflect the needs of all
people. Highlighting the ways in which the notions of militarised
security are silently underwritten and supported by an image of
hegemonic masculinity enable us to see just how dangerous and
illusory an image of security that produces.

Gender awareness also shows that participating in
self-censorship, as the physicist in the first example did, is
understandable, but very counter-productive. The effect of such
self-censorship is to exclude a whole range of relevant inputs as
if they did not belong in discussions of "hard" security issues
because they are too "soft" (i.e. feminine).

The growing and active community working around gender, peace
and security issues can very effectively multiply, amplify and
deepen arguments for disarmament, which is the most effective
nonproliferation approach of all, as recognised for biological and
chemical weapons. Concurrently, as a consequence of the unanimous
adoption of Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and
Security, foreign ministries and departments of defence are having
to pay more attention to gender issues.[12] This resolution has attracted more interest than
many other Security Council resolutions, forging new networks,
publications, organisations, initiatives and budgets, as an active
global constituency develops to further the resolution's aims and
monitor implementation. By placing gender within the UN's mandate
of maintaining international peace and security, UNSCR 1325
provides legitimacy for work on raising gender awareness in all
aspects of security and defence.

The debate on that resolution and its follow up have brought
into sharper focus the enormous contribution of women as
stakeholders in peace, disarmament and conflict prevention. The
role of men and a certain kind of masculinity in dominating the
political structures that organise wars and oversee security
matters is beginning to be questioned. The result has been a
greater awareness of the gender dimensions of security issues in
conflict and post-conflict situations throughout the international
community. Even NATO is convening workshops on the significance of
UNSCR 1325 to its work!

Notes

[1] This paper is
based on a presentation made by Carol Cohn and Felicity Hill to the
WMD Commission in Stockholm, June 2005.

[2] The ratio of
women to men is extremely imbalanced in security and disarmament
negotiations, which is increasingly considered relevant. In the ten
years between 1992 and 2002, 33 women headed delegations to the
review meetings of the NPT, compared to 660 men in that role.
During the same period at the General Assembly First Committee on
Security and Disarmament, women headed only 7% of country
delegations. Out of 88 ambassadors in the Security Council between
1992 and 2005, only 4 have been women.

[3] Women's
organisations have protested nuclear weapons since the bombing of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and have campaigned for cessation of
nuclear testing. When women activists collected baby teeth and had
them tested for levels of strontium 90, it had a strong impact on
public debate on nuclear issues in the USA. Women anti-nuclear
activists have successfully closed nuclear weapons bases, such as
the Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp in the United Kingdom, and
engaged in concerted efforts that forced governments to change
policies or create nuclear-weapon-free zones at the municipal level
throughout the world. They have also monitored and lobbied
international meetings on disarmament, such as the General
Assembly's three Special Sessions on Disarmament, the Chemical
Weapons Convention, the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, and
the First Committee of the General Assembly on Disarmament and
International Security. The World Conferences on Women in 1975,
1980, 1985 and 1995 all mentioned disarmament and macro security
issues because of strong advocacy on the part of women's
organisations making linkages between gender issues and weapons
issues, with the Beijing Declaration recognising 'the leading role
that women have played in the peace movement, work[ing] actively
towards general and complete disarmament under strict and effective
international control, and support[ing] negotiations on the
conclusion, without delay, of a universal and multilaterally and
effectively verifiable comprehensive nuclear-test-ban treaty which
contributes to nuclear disarmament and the prevention of the
proliferation of nuclear weapons in all its aspects'.

[4] Scientists and
researchers have found that women are more at risk of developing
fatal cancer than men when exposed to the same ionising radiation
exposure. Women's reproductive health is especially susceptible to
the effects of radiation released from nuclear testing, as a
National Cancer Institute study has documented, radioactive
isotopes from nuclear testing have been found in every single
county of the US. Pacific Island women who lived "downwind" from
nuclear testing had high rates of still births and some babies born
without bones or with other severe deformities such as transparent
skin or displaced organs.

[5] Though this
rugged masculine image was convincing for many voters, its obvious
construction for PR purposes laid it open to being lampooned, as
illustrated by a cartoonist who portrayed Bush on that occasion as
suffering from "premature ejaculation."

[6] For a more
in-depth and multi-faceted development of the argument that ideas
about gender have the effect of limiting and distorting the very
discourses - both professional and political - that have been
developed to think about WMD see Carol Cohn, 'Slick`ems, glick`ems,
Christmas Trees, and Cookie Cutters: Nuclear Language and How We
Learned to Pat the Bomb', Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists,
June, Volume 43., 'Sex and Death in the Rational World of Defence
Intellectuals', Signs, vol.12, No. 4, 1989, pp. 687-718,
'Wars, Wimps and Women' in Miriam Cooke and Angela Woollacott,
(1993), Gendering War Talk, Princeton University Press, New
Jersey (from which this example is drawn).

[7] This example
comes from a meeting of civilian defence intellectuals, at which
Carol Cohn was present as a participant observer.

[8] "Bomb 'em back
to the Stone Age" is a phrase from Air Force Chief of Staff General
Curtis LeMay, whose idea of how the US should employ its nuclear
weapons in the height of the Cold War did not exactly conform to
the subtleties and complexities of the nuclear strategists of his
time. The phrase is now commonly used, along with "make the rubble
bounce," by a wide range of commentators on warfare, as a 'google"
search will quickly reveal.

[11] This section
of the paper is taken from Carol Cohn and Sara Ruddick, op.
cit.

[12] In March
2000, the Security Council conceded that 'peace was inextricably
tied to equality between women and men,' (see: "Peace Inextricably
Linked with Equality between Women and Men says Security Council,
in International Women's Day Statement", Security Council press
release SC/6816, 8 March 2000 http://www.un.org/womenwatch/news/articles/chowdhuryiwd00.htm)
and in October 2000 unanimously adopted Security Council resolution
1325 on Women, Peace and Security, S/Res/1325 (2000), http:www.un.org/.

Dr Carol Cohn is the Director of the
Boston Consortium on Gender, Security and Human Rights, and a
Senior Research Scholar at the Fletcher School of Law and
Diplomacy. Her research and writing has focused on gender and
international security, ranging from work on discourse of civilian
defence intellectuals, gender integration issues in the US
military, and, most extensively, weapons of mass destruction,
including: "Sex and Death in the Rational World of Defense
Intellectuals", Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and
Society, vol. 12, no. 4 (Summer 1987), and most recently, with
Sara Ruddick, "A Feminist Ethical Perspective on Weapons of Mass
Destruction," in Ethics and Weapons of Mass Destruction:
Religious and Secular Perspectives, eds. Sohail H. Hashmi and
Steven P. Lee, Cambridge University Press, 2004. Her current
research, supported by the Ford Foundation, examines gender
mainstreaming in international peace and security institutions; a
central focus is the passage of UN Security Council Resolution 1325
on women, peace and security, and the on-going efforts to ensure
its implementation. Felicity Hill is the Greenpeace
International Political Adviser on Nuclear and Disarmament Issues.
Before taking up this post Felicity was a Peace & Security
Advisor to UNIFEM's Governance Peace and Security team, responsible
for the Fund's work on conflict prevention, early warning and a web
portal on Women, War and Peace. As the Director of the Women's
International League for Peace and Freedom's UN Office in New York
from 1997-2001 she created the Reaching Critical Will and
PeaceWomen projects focused on enhancing NGO preparation and
participation in security and disarmament fora. Sara Ruddick
is Professor Emerita of Philosophy and Feminist Studies at Lang
College of the New School for Social Research, USA. She is the
author of Maternal Thinking: Towards a Politics of Peace and
numerous other publications on feminist studies, just war theory,
and nonviolence.

United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace
and Security

Security Council Resolution 1325 (S/RES/1325) is the first
resolution ever passed by the Security Council that specifically
addresses the impact of war on women, and women's contributions to
conflict resolution and sustainable peace. It was passed
unanimously on 31 October 2000.

The Security Council,

Recalling its resolutions 1261 (1999) of 25 August
1999, 1265 (1999) of 17 September 1999, 1296 (2000) of 19 April
2000 and 1314 (2000) of 11 August 2000, as well as relevant
statements of its President and recalling also the statement of its
President, to the press on the occasion of the United Nations Day
for Women's Rights and International Peace of 8 March 2000
(SC/6816),

Recalling also the commitments of the Beijing
Declaration and Platform for Action (A/52/231) as well as those
contained in the outcome document of the twenty-third Special
Session of the United Nations General Assembly entitled "Women
2000: Gender Equality, Development and Peace for the twenty-first
century" (A/S-23/10/Rev.1), in particular those concerning women
and armed conflict,

Bearing in mind the purposes and principles of the
Charter of the United Nations and the primary responsibility of the
Security Council under the Charter for the maintenance of
international peace and security,

Expressing concern that civilians, particularly
women and children, account for the vast majority of those
adversely affected by armed conflict, including as refugees and
internally displaced persons, and increasingly are targeted by
combatants and armed elements, and recognizing the consequent
impact this has on durable peace and reconciliation,

Reaffirming the important role of women in the
prevention and resolution of conflicts and in peace-building, and
stressing the importance of their equal participation and full
involvement in all efforts for the maintenance and promotion of
peace and security, and the need to increase their role in
decision- making with regard to conflict prevention and
resolution,

Reaffirming also the need to implement fully
international humanitarian and human rights law that protects the
rights of women and girls during and after conflicts,

Emphasizing the need for all parties to ensure
that mine clearance and mine awareness programmes take into account
the special needs of women and girls,

Recognizing the urgent need to mainstream a gender
perspective into peacekeeping operations, and in this regard noting
the Windhoek Declaration and the Namibia Plan of Action on
Mainstreaming a Gender Perspective in Multidimensional Peace
Support Operations (S/2000/693),

Recognizing also the importance of the
recommendation contained in the statement of its President to the
press of 8 March 2000 for specialized training for all peacekeeping
personnel on the protection, special needs and human rights of
women and children in conflict situations,

Recognizing that an understanding of the impact of
armed conflict on women and girls, effective institutional
arrangements to guarantee their protection and full participation
in the peace process can significantly contribute to the
maintenance and promotion of international peace and security,

Noting the need to consolidate data on the impact
of armed conflict on women and girls,

1. Urges Member States to ensure increased
representation of women at all decision-making levels in national,
regional and international institutions and mechanisms for the
prevention, management, and resolution of conflict;

2. Encourages the Secretary-General to implement
his strategic plan of action (A/49/587) calling for an increase in
the participation of women at decision-making levels in conflict
resolution and peace processes;

3. Urges the Secretary-General to appoint more
women as special representatives and envoys to pursue good offices
on his behalf, and in this regard calls on Member States to provide
candidates to the Secretary-General, for inclusion in a regularly
updated centralized roster;

4. Further urges the Secretary-General to seek to
expand the role and contribution of women in United Nations
field-based operations, and especially among military observers,
civilian police, human rights and humanitarian personnel;

5. Expresses its willingness to incorporate a
gender perspective into peacekeeping operations and urges the
Secretary-General to ensure that, where appropriate, field
operations include a gender component;

6. Requests the Secretary-General to provide to
Member States training guidelines and materials on the protection,
rights and the particular needs of women, as well as on the
importance of involving women in all peacekeeping and
peace-building measures, invites Member States to incorporate these
elements as well as HIV/AIDS awareness training into their national
training programmes for military and civilian police personnel in
preparation for deployment and further requests the
Secretary-General to ensure that civilian personnel of peacekeeping
operations receive similar training;

7. Urges Member States to increase their voluntary
financial, technical and logistical support for gender-sensitive
training efforts, including those undertaken by relevant funds and
programmes, inter alia, the United Nations Fund for Women and
United Nations Children's Fund, and by the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees and other relevant bodies;

8. Calls on all actors involved, when negotiating
and implementing peace agreements, to adopt a gender perspective,
including, inter alia: (a) The special needs of women and girls
during repatriation and resettlement and for rehabilitation,
reintegration and post-conflict reconstruction; (b) Measures that
support local women's peace initiatives and indigenous processes
for conflict resolution, and that involve women in all of the
implementation mechanisms of the peace agreements; (c) Measures
that ensure the protection of and respect for human rights of women
and girls, particularly as they relate to the constitution, the
electoral system, the police and the judiciary;

9. Calls upon all parties to armed conflict to
respect fully international law applicable to the rights and
protection of women and girls as civilians, in particular the
obligations applicable to them under the Geneva Conventions of 1949
and the Additional Protocols thereto of 1977, the Refugee
Convention of 1951 and the Protocol thereto of 1967, the Convention
Security Council - 5 - Press Release SC/6942 4213th Meeting (PM) 31
October 2000 on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination
against Women of 1979 and the Optional Protocol thereto of 1999 and
the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child of 1989
and the two Optional Protocols thereto of 25 May 2000, and to bear
in mind the relevant provisions of the Rome Statute of the
International Criminal Court;

10. Calls on all parties to armed conflict to take
special measures to protect women and girls from gender-based
violence, particularly rape and other forms of sexual abuse, and
all other forms of violence in situations of armed conflict;

11. Emphasizes the responsibility of all States to
put an end to impunity and to prosecute those responsible for
genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes including those
relating to sexual violence against women and girls, and in this
regard, stresses the need to exclude these crimes, where feasible
from amnesty provisions;

12. Calls upon all parties to armed conflict to
respect the civilian and humanitarian character of refugee camps
and settlements, and to take into account the particular needs of
women and girls, including in their design, and recalls its
resolution 1208 (1998) of 19 November 1998;

13. Encourages all those involved in the planning
for disarmament, demobilization and reintegration to consider the
different needs of female and male ex-combatants and to take into
account the needs of their dependants;

14. Reaffirms its readiness, whenever measures are
adopted under Article 41 of the Charter of the United Nations, to
give consideration to their potential impact on the civilian
population, bearing in mind the special needs of women and girls,
in order to consider appropriate humanitarian exemptions;

15. Expresses its willingness to ensure that
Security Council missions take into account gender considerations
and the rights of women, including through consultation with local
and international women's groups;

16. Invites the Secretary-General to carry out a
study on the impact of armed conflict on women and girls, the role
of women in peace-building and the gender dimensions of peace
processes and conflict resolution, and further invites him to
submit a report to the Security Council on the results of this
study and to make this available to all Member States of the United
Nations;

17. Requests the Secretary-General, where
appropriate, to include in his reporting to the Security Council,
progress on gender mainstreaming throughout peacekeeping missions
and all other aspects relating to women and girls;